 |
Re: [RC] [RC] early handling - recklessheartranchAlice -- Just my personal opinion, but I'm not a big fan of Miller's methods. I have known more than afew horses who were "imprinted" who were actually very assertive and/or aggressive with people at maturity. Maybe it wasn't done correctly, but since it is "the release that teaches" if it ISN'T done correctly you can make more of a problem than not. So if you don't know exactly what you are doing or have an experienced person working with you, I would forgo formal "imprinting." Like much of life, reading about it in books is often not the same as doing it in real life. Also a study done afew years ago showed no big difference in (mature)horses who were imprinted as foals and those who were simply handled (correctly) alot as babies on a day to day basis...the old fashion way. I've raised lots of babies, and I do start the leading and halter training very early (at 2-3 days of age) while I still have a weight advantage...other than that I let their education unfold in bits and pieces. As for your last foal -- genetics play a BIG role. Keep in mind your last foal was o/o a "standoffish", obviously alpha mare...could it be that the filly was also "standoffish" by nature? Maybe that's why you never developed the bond. Not all horses are the same in their temperament and all the training in the world isn't going to change that. You can "train" a horse to be respectful of your authority, but you can't train them to be affectionate and social...that's more of an inborn trait. That's where experience comes in -- you can't use a "cookie cutter" approach to training horses just like you can't use it for raising kids. A forceful method may work great on many kids/horses, whereas with some others it's more of a "make them think it was their idea" method. Sorry not to be more specific, but there really isn't ONE perfect answer. Katrina From: Alice Yovich <ayovich@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: 2008/02/03 Sun AM 10:13:08 CST To: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [RC] early handling Since I am going to have my first foal in a number of years(and possibly my last foal ever) I am contemplating all these issues for myfoal. I have had four foals in the past. My first was when I was prettynew to horses. I still have the copy of Robert Miller’s book aboutimprinting, and I did many of the exercises soon after he got here. Mostly though I just was at the barn every day playing with him and I was ableto take him trail riding just loose with his mother and he was in a herd fromday 10 or so. My next foal was dead upon arrival which was really awful,but I bred the mare back and had a great foal. The only problem was thatI was 4 months pregnant when he got there, so I wasn’t able to handle himlike I wanted b/c he was the size of a full sized pony soon after birth. My last foal was a TWH baby born to a very standoffish dam. She was bornin the pasture and from day one was not a trusting baby. I worked her,kept her up in a round pen, handled her every chance I had, but each time itwas like I had never done any work with her. There was no opportunity toimprint her at all as her mother wouldn’t let me touch her for close to24 hours. After 2 years I sold her and the folks who bought her really likeher, but I never did have the relationship with her I wanted. Since my daughter is going to involved in the upbringing ofthe foal, I’m determined that she not play with the baby, but yet I wantus to develop a great relationship and do early training that will make thelater training easy. Alice Yovich, MT-BC, LMT NATRC Region 4, Texas http://www.alicestrailridethroughlife.blogspot.com/ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|